combining computers

is it possible to like hook up one computer to anoter one so that they share ram and processors, making one super-computer? could i hook up an ibook to my powermac g4 and use one display and have like, the combined power of both?

Yes. Theoritically it is possible.

But only for certain high performance apps that can actually utilize xgrid.

You could use your iBook's screen as an extended desktop though:
http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html

Sharing ram and processors? Probably not in the way you're thinking.

If you get them working in a multiprocessor mode, one machine would control both, distributing jobs to either machine. If your PowerMac was the main machine, it could distribute jobs to the iBook. The machines would use their own processor and ram for processing of their respective jobs. The PowerMac wouldn't become faster by virtue of having access to the iBook processor, nor would it have the advantage of using the iBook ram.

If you have a compute intensive program you want/need to run, you could write it in a way that distributes jobs between machines. Again, one machine would have the controlling process. That won't necessarily make things faster for you if you have to send much data between machines on a network. For that you need some exotic networking equipment.

For your amusement, here's what's possible:

http://www.llnl.gov/asc/computing_resources/bluegenel/bluegene_home.html



You might wish to note that this little baby runs IBM PowerPC chips.

Short answer, no.

But you can use a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switchbox to display both machines on the same monitor & keryboard, alternately, and then do manual multitasking: like set one machine to do a task like render a movie or RIP a CD or burn some backups, then switch to the other machine and check mail and do other stuff.

Of course, you can use filesharing to have both machines accessing the same Shared folder of data, so that you can work on lets say an image with one machine, and then on the other bring that image into a Word document.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com